Steve Smith

Steven Smith Jr. (born December 24, 1945) is a Canadian actor, writer, and comedian. He is best known as the co-creator and star of the sketch comedy show The Red Green Show (1991–2006), for which he portrayed the titular character.

Early life Smith was born in Toronto on Christmas Eve 1945. Before turning to comedy, he studied engineering at the University of Waterloo and then worked a variety of jobs. He was an elementary schoolteacher at Gladys Spears Public School in Oakville ON for at least two years, 1967-68. In late 1974 he and his wife Morag released a single titled "Let's Put The Fun Back In Rock And Roll" as "Jason" and it reached #80 on the Canadian charts in February 1975. In 1979, he began to produce, write, and star in Smith & Smith, a sketch comedy series with a cast consisting of Smith and Morag. The show was produced for Hamilton, Ontario's CHCH-TV and syndicated to other television stations in Canada, and featured the first appearances of the Red Green character.

Career

In 1985, Smith created the family sitcom Me & Max. After the first season the Smiths went back to sketch comedy, creating the series The Comedy Mill, which ran for four years. Smith was a writer on Offside, a sports comedy series for CTV, head writer for Global's Laughing Matters, and the TV pilot of Out of Our Minds with David Steinberg. He wrote three episodes of CBS' Top Cops series.

In 1991, Smith co-created The Red Green Show and portrayed its titular character; the series ran for 15 seasons and 300 episodes until its end in 2006. In 1997, Smith was credited as his alter-ego, Red Green, in the "Pavement" episode of the Cartoon Network/Adult Swim show Space Ghost Coast to Coast. In 2002 the full-length movie Duct Tape Forever was produced.

Personal life Smith and his wife Morag have been married since 1966 and have two sons, Dave and Max. They also have six grandchildren.

On February 17, 2006, Smith was made a Member of the Order of Canada. On June 13, 2011, he received an honorary Doctor of Letters from McMaster University. On February 24, 2023, he was inducted into the Canadian Comedy Hall of Fame as a Creator and Performer, the first inductee in two categories.